A view of Huzhou, East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/WeChat account: zjfabu]

Three cities from East China's Zhejiang province were recently listed among the second batch of national pilot cities for culture and tourism consumption.

The three listed cities are Shaoxing, Huzhou and Quzhou, bringing the total number of Zhejiang cities that are included in the national program to five.

The list was jointly released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance.

Huzhou has witnessed robust growth in its culture and tourism sectors in recent years. In the first three quarters of this year, the city received 8.054 million tourists, up 23.1 percent year-on-year, becoming the only city in the province to achieve positive growth in visitor numbers.

During the seven-day National Day holiday, Huzhou welcomed over 5.6 million visitors, among whom 3.05 million traveled to its rural areas.

Local authorities have implemented a string of measures like promoting the application of digital payment and launching the city's flagship store on online tourism platform Ctrip to stimulate culture and tourism consumption.

Huzhou has emerged as a preferred tourism destination for visitors from the Yangtze River Delta, a region encompassing the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui as well as Shanghai municipality.

The city's online sales of cultural and tourism products hit 280 million yuan ($43 million) in the first half of this year. The number of visitors to the city and tourism revenue generated over the six-month period rose by 29.4 percent and 43.1 percent respectively.

The city will next strive to be a national model for "all-for-one" tourism and an East Asia Cultural City.